And Now For Something...Really Not All That Different, Actually (And Fic!)
So a few months back, seren_ccd invited her f-list to play with an incredibly fun meme involving Fake TV Shows. She gave me the lurvely cast list to make The Quatermain Society, and I gave her 7 actors and actresses, and she created the RIDICULOUSLY delightful "The Gardeners." Seriously, go read that and tell me you don't want that on your television screen right this second!! (Also, if you DON'T go read that...well, then none of this will make any sense, haha!)
Anyway, since she created such a great universe (and since apparently if you put Mattt Smith and Karen Gillan in anything, I will want to write about them making out), I've been playing with little "ficlets" with those characters. And when, in one of her own ficlets, Seren mentioned that BFFs Patrick and Mari may never have had sex, but did get to third base the night Patrick graudated uni... well, I had to write that. And so here it is! Please to enjoy, and big thanks to Seren for letting me build smutty castles in her sandbox! ;)
And just for visual reference....
Mari Gardener. How much do I love this dress (and Karen in this dress?)SO MUCH.
Patrick Smythe. This is from Party Animals, which is SUCH a good show. Really proves what a great actor MS is, as Danny Foster could not be any more different from the Doctor (although he is still so adorable, you might actually die.)
And now on to fic!!
Title: The Brandy Incident of '08.
Pairing: Patrick Smythe/Mari Gardener from seren_ccd's "The Gardeners"
Rating: Um....PG-13ish, I suppose? Really, really light R?
“Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to do this in the folly?” Patrick asked as his hands slid up Mari’s shirt and onto the bare skin of her back.
She laughed and tightened her fingers in his hair, her hips shifting pleasantly over his. And then her mouth was on his again, tasting like expensive liquor, and all Patrick could do was groan.
They were currently on a stone bench, secluded in the depths of her father’s gardens. Overhead, a full moon shone down, the spring night surprisingly warm, and both of them far more drunk than they were willing to admit. Mari had lifted a bottle of David Gardener’s best brandy to help celebrate Patrick’s graduation from uni. He wasn’t sure just how much they’d had, but when she’d clambered onto his lap, he’d heard the bottle hit the ground. It hadn’t sounded like there’d been that much left.
Mari pulled back, her hips still rolling. “Well, that depends. Do you love me?”
Seeing as how Patrick had drunk God knows how much brandy and currently had lap-full of leggy redhead, it was a wonder he was able to come up with an answer so quickly. But since the redhead in question was his best friend in the entire world, the answer tumbled from his lips and onto the hot skin of her throat.
“To distraction.”
Grinning, Mari pulled back a little, her fingers still sunk into his hair. “No. I mean…,”She pressed her forehead to his. “Are you in love with me?”
“Huh,” Patrick said, and then chuckled.
“What’s funny about that?”
“It’s … I’m actually pissed enough to be honest.” He looked into Mari’s hazel eyes, his hands cupping the base of her skull. “No, Marigold Gardener. I’m not in love with you. Granted, I’m probably the only man in this entire village who isn’t.”
“Why not?” she asked, ducking her head to kiss the spot just below his ear. She didn’t sound offended or upset. Just curious.
Breathing hard, Patrick began to unbutton her blouse. “Should I continue with the brutal honesty?”
“Hmm, yes please,” she sighed as his hands slid the silk off her shoulders.
“Because,” he pressed a kiss to her collarbone. “You.” Another kiss, this one to the upper slope of her breasts. “Scare me.” Now his fingers were at the front clasp of her bra, undoing it with far more deftness than he’d shown the first time they attempted this. “Shitless.”
“Oi!” she cried, rearing up on his lap. “What is that supposed to mean?”
When he didn’t immediately answer, Mari’s fingers went from his belt to dig into his ribs. “Tell me!” she demanded, as Patrick writhed on the bench, trying to dodge her.
“Nothing!” he insisted, even as he laughed and attempted to clutch her hands. “Stop it! Mari, I’m serious!”
They were shrieking and laughing as they tumbled off the bench and onto the soft lawn. For a moment, all they could do was lie there helplessly, breathless both from the fall and their own gales of laughter.
Ribs aching, Patrick lifted himself up on both arms to look down at Mari. “I just mean…,” He trailed off as he studied the half-naked girl beneath him, wondering if it was just the brandy that made him suddenly feel lightheaded.
“You’re my best mate, you are,” he said softly, and Mari’s giggles faded. “And I do love you. I’ve loved you since I was six years old, and you cracked Crispin Jones upside the head with a plastic truck.”
Mari snorted as she reached up to push the hair off Patrick’s forehead. “Too right I did. Wanker.”
“Complete wanker,” Patrick agreed. “But that’s just it, Mari. I love you, and we’re friends, and if I let myself fall in love with you…dunno. Just feel like that would be it. I’d have to marry you, because God knows, no one else would do, and then what? I’d be 22 and married to the girl I’ve known all my life, and we’d live here in the village, and you’d- you’d bake things, and I’d do your fathers accounts, and then we would just be those people, Mari, those people who…God, I am really very drunk.”
Arching her body against his, Mari twined her arms around Patrick’s neck and murmured, “All the better reason to shut it, then.”
Their lips met, and then neither of them spoke for quite a long time. When Patrick finally broke away to gasp for breath, he managed to ask, “Why were we talking about love and whether or not we were in it?”
“Because,” Mari said, lifting her hips so that Patrick could reach under her skirt and pull her knickers down her legs. “You said we should be doing this in the folly.”
“Oh, right,” he said with a breathless laugh as he tossed her underwear over his shoulder.“That was a good one. Must remember that.”
“And my p-point,” Mari said, her voice breaking a little as Patrick’s hand palmed her inner thigh, “is that as long as you're not in love with me, and I'm not in love with you, then no, this is not a mistake. It’s just…mmmm…a bit of fun, right? Between friends?”
“Right,” Patrick said, licking the side of her neck, tasting sweat, and the hint of perfume, and Mari herself, that sweet, cinnamon-and-vanilla scent that just seemed to be a part of her. “Fun.”
From there on out, things got quite heated, and, in both their memories, a little fuzzy. Later, Mari would admit she had an embarrassingly lucid image of clutching Patrick’s shoulders and whispering, “Oh, God, did they teach you that at university?” while Patrick would always remember the hot, slick feel of her, and the way she’d trembled underneath his hands. How she had laughed as she came, which had just seemed extraordinary, and yet so very, very…Mari.
And he would always regret not having an especially clear memory of Mari sliding her hand into his trousers and returning the favor.
What he did remember was lying there on the grass with her afterwards, her cheek on his chest, his arm around her shoulders as they stared up at the starry sky. “I’m very, very proud of you, Patrick Thomas Smythe,” Mari muttered sleepily.
“As well you should be,” he replied. “D’you think anyone from the house heard you? Am I going to be thrown into the stocks for debauching the lord of the manor’s daughter?”
Mari poked him in the ribs, and Patrick made an exaggerated noise of pain. “Not that, you git,” she said, wrapping her arm tightly around his waist. “And debauching. As if you’re the first man to get my knickers off.”
He was, but she wouldn’t tell him that for a few more years.
“I meant I’m proud of you for graduating. For… being you.”
“Thanks, luv,” he said quietly, kissing her temple. “Quite proud of you for being you, too. And for your truly excellent taste in your father’s liquor.”
Laughing, Mari snuggled closer to him, and Patrick breathed in the sweet scent of her hair mixed with the earthy smell of the gardens. The stars overhead seemed to be spinning, but Patrick was pretty sure that was just an aftereffect either of the brandy or the orgasm. Perhaps both.
“This doesn’t feel even the littlest bit like a ‘folly,’” Mari said, and even though, for the briefest of moments, another face flashed into his mind, Patrick held her closer and whispered, “I know.”